Roger Bacon : essays contributed by various writers on the occasion of the commemoration of the 7th centenary of his birth / collected and edited by A.G. Little.

  • Andrew George Little
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Roger Bacon : essays contributed by various writers on the occasion of the commemoration of the 7th centenary of his birth / collected and edited by A.G. Little. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    27/442 page 15
    the execution. There is no doubt that Bacon was right in this criticism, and the history of some of the Latin translations is sufficient to make their worthlessness in- telligible. In many cases they were translated from the Arabic by wretched Arabic scholars ; while the Arabic versions were not generally from the original Greek. Most frequently they were from Syriac translations, through which a knowledge of Aristotle first penetrated to the Arate. Thus the steps would be : Original Greek, Syriac version, , Arabic translation of the Syriac, Latin version of the Arabic. It is not wonderful that in too many cases Aristotle was ; indeed “translated”, and that there should be found in i his harder works what Bacon calls “ horrible difficulties ”. ‘ Bacon himself knew Greek well. Among his unprinted works * is a fragment of a Greek grammar ; and so easy (did he think the language that he professed himself able : to teach any one to read the ordinary authors within three (days. For this boast he has been much blamed ; Prantl, f the historian of Logic, with all the German capacity for ! hurling hard names, calls him “ a swindler and a charlatan : like his celebrated namesake ”. I think it probable that ’ the particular passage in the Opus Tertium has been some- what misunderstood, and that we must not interpret the 1 language very strictly. ‘ The Fourth part of the Opus is in some respects the imost remarkable. In it Bacon handles mathematics, their 1 utility for science and for theology. It is for what he says •here that one would claim highest credit for him. Mathe- Tmatics he calls the gate and key of the natural sciences, . the alphabet of philosophy. In it alone do we have perfect ■ and complete demonstration. While therefore mathematics iis necessary for all science whatsoever, it is particularly I needful and useful for natural philosophy. “ Physicists”, isays Bacon, “ ought to know that their science is powerless ’unless they call in the aid of mathematics.” (Naturales jmundi sciant quod languebunt in rebus naturalibus, nisi Imathematicae noverunt potestatem.—De Coelestihus MS.) This opinion is not taken up loosely, not thrown out by t chance ; it is grounded on a broad and comprehensive theory ' of natural action. For, according to Bacon, all natural : phenomena, all generation, change, transformation, must ' [Printed in 1902, ed. Nolan and Hirsch.] “ [Charles, Roger Bacon, 137, note: Steele, Opera hacteniis inedita, ■; Fasc. IV, p. 342.]
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3